Brandeis student plans push for global change

Monday

Mar 12, 2018 at 1:58 PMMar 12, 2018 at 1:58 PM

By Abby Patkinwaltham@wickedlocal.com

Coming off of a recent Washington, D.C. summit focused on tackling extreme global poverty, Brandeis University student Sage Rosenthal is learning to make a change, one letter, one voice, one vote at a time.

A junior at Brandeis University, Rosenthal attended the summit last month as a campus leader for the ONE Campaign, an international advocacy organization that tackles worldwide poverty and preventable disease by raising awareness and calling for programs and policies.

Lobbying to protect and improve foreign aid, Rosenthal served as part of a Massachusetts delegation that met with Reps. Joe Kennedy, Seth Moulton and Katherine Clark, as well as the offices of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey.

‘Doing Good’

Rosenthal, who is majoring in health policy, has long had an interest in combating poverty and disease on a global level.

“I really wanted to get involved in an organization that fit my ideals, and wanted to kind of do good around the world, in the cliché way,” she said.

As the founder and president of ONE’s Brandeis chapter, Rosenthal coordinates programming on campus and works with local ONE leaders to advance the campaign’s mission. She even attended the annual ONE summit last year, training with other students and community district leaders.

“As a new campus leader, it was very much a training, getting the ball rolling summit for me,” she said. “But this year, I got involved more as a veteran, you might say, having done it before. …I kind of learned, to a greater extent, how to take what I know about the ONE Campaign and what I’m passionate about and apply it to a broader hands-on experience.”

Meeting inspiring leaders

This year’s summit tackled foreign aid, which is threatened by President Donald Trump’s recently-released fiscal year 2019 budget request, Rosenthal said. Under the proposed budget, allocations for international affairs would be cut by about 30 percent. Though this sum constitutes less than one percent of the overall federal budget, it provides necessary funds to UNICEF, The Global Fund and other programs that are “life-changing to people that are living in extreme poverty,” Rosenthal said.

The delegation also lobbied on behalf of the bipartisan Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development, or BUILD Act, which would support entrepreneurs in areas of extreme poverty by providing them funding so that they can become leaders of economic growth in their communities.

As part of the summit, Rosenthal was also afforded the opportunity to introduce and meet with the CEO of the World Bank, Kristalina Georgieva — one of the more memorable moments from the summit, she said.

“It was incredibly meaningful to not just meet with her one-on-one, but also to see a powerful, influential woman up on stage telling us that what we’re trying to achieve is possible, and that she supports us, and that she’s proud of us,” Rosenthal said. “Being a woman myself, I would say it was really powerful to see leaders in the cause of eradicating extreme poverty being women as well.”

While the firsthand lobbying and advocacy experience allowed Rosenthal to apply her passion to something tangible, it was also an excellent learning experience, she said.

“I saw myself from the year before to this year truly grow as a student and a learner,” she said. “I feel I am continuing to better grow and understand these issues and understand how to make a difference and feel more comfortable walking into a senator’s office and meeting with their staffers and advisors and really better understanding the impact this budget and this bill will have.”

The push for change

The Massachusetts delegation also had the fortune of lobbying Democratic representatives, who may have been more inclined to support foreign aid, Rosenthal said.

“We were almost preaching to the choir when we went into these senators’ and members [of Congress’] offices,” said the New York native. “How they stand with us — they see the solution, they see how what we do really helps, and it just kind of reaffirmed the privilege and the honor I have being a student in Massachusetts, how our community really does want to make a difference.”

As a testament to this dedication, she said, Moulton signed on to cosponsor the BUILD Act — which was introduced to the House of Representatives on Feb. 27 — soon after meeting with the ONE delegation.

Even despite the sympathetic audience, Rosenthal’s work at the summit served only to remind her that there still needs to be a concerted push for change.

“My work with ONE reminds me that if [people] want to make a difference, we have to push and remind them to write that letter, to make that phone call and continue to do the work and not just have those great, inspiring thoughts, but to put that into action,” she said.